Archive for the ‘Dodge Viper’ Category

2017 has been an eventful year for the auto industry. It’s also been a devastating one for some models, particularly those that were effectively told by their automakers that they’re discontinuing them. Cars come and go in this ever-evolving industry and, this year, a few notable models are, in fact, getting sent to retirement. There’s a chance that we may see them again in the future, but as far as the short-term is concerned, it’s time to say goodbye to them.

So ahead of their eventual discontinuation, we’re giving them one last moment in the spotlight. Consider it a tribute to these models, some of whom have etched an inscrutable legacy in the auto industry. They may have been popular makes at one point in the past, but with consumer tastes changing, they’ve become expendable in the eyes of their automakers. So say goodbye to these four-wheeled machines; each of them had good runs. But time is unforgiving; it marches on with no conscience of who, or what, it leaves behind. Those who can’t keep up will inevitably become remnants of a time gone by.

There once was a time when the Hyundai Azera was regarded as Hyundai’s flagship model in the US. That status changed when the Hyundai Genesis arrived. Still, the Azera made for a decent full-sized sedan. It didn’t lack in features, had a relatively comfortable ride, and came with a price – $35,000 – that didn’t burn holes in our pockets. Still, the Azera was overshadowed by the mid-size Sonata and Hyundai’s decision to turn Genesis into its own luxury brand. Simply put, the Azera became expendable, and while it will live on in other markets as the Hyundai Grandeur, its days in the US are coming to an end.

It is somewhat ironic to find a Jeep in this list, especially when you consider that the brand is one of FCA’s legitimate money-makers. But such is life in the auto industry as even the best automakers aren’t susceptible to making hard decisions like this one. For the record, the Jeep Patriot was actually discontinued in 2016, but since a handful of models were still sold this year, we’re including it in our list of cars that we won’t get to see once the calendar flips to 2018.

It’s hard to point to one reason why the Patriot wasn’t as good as Jeep hoped it’d be. Maybe it was because the company took shortcuts in developing it and was seemingly content with selling it because it was affordable. Maybe it even relied too much on the “Jeep” name to help mask the Patriot’s many deficiencies. Whatever it was, Jeep finally came to its senses and decided to replace it with the all-new Compass. The jury is still out on how the second-generation Compass will be received, but it speaks to how terrible the Patriot was that Jeep decided to replace it altogether with a model whose first-gen version was every bit a slog as the Patriot was. In any event, good riddance, Jeep Patriot. You won’t be missed.

Here’s another model that’s technically been dead since 2016. The Chrysler 200 is on this list only because Chrysler had to discard however many models were left this year. That won’t be the case in 2018 because believe it or not, Chrysler will have only two models on its portfolio, one of which is the 300 sedan that’s also dying to get replaced. You have to feel bad for the Pacifica minivan. You just have to. Not only is it the only Chrysler model that’s worth spending on, but there’s literally no other model around to complement it. The 200 should’ve been that model when it was introduced in 2015. But the supposed cornerstone never got any traction in the eyes of consumers. It generated poor reviews that affected its sales volume and, to Chrysler’s credit, it was quick to throw up its hands and admit that the 200 was a monumental debacle. It definitely won’t be missed.

Once upon a time, the Volkswagen Touareg was regarded as one of the first upscale SUVs to really make its mark in the SUV market. It was stylish, sporty, and proudly carried the Volkswagen badge that was a pretty big deal for American consumers. The thing is that 13 years, and hundreds of more SUV options later, the Touareg is being sent to the shed, though not really of its own doing. The model still had some loyalists, but not enough for Volkswagen to keep it in the fold. Instead, the Touareg will be replaced by the all-new Volkswagen Atlas, a model that’s not only larger than the model it’s replacing but also packs more features that play into the needs of American families. The Touareg had a good run, but its time is up.

Since we’re already talking about retiring Volskwagens, let’s stay here and turn our attention on the CC four-door coupe. I was actually torn about the fate of the CC when Volkswagen announced that it was discontinuing it. I liked the way it looked, and I’ve driven it enough to know that it actually had a good ride to it. But the CC suffered from the same disease that the Hyundai Azera did: it was completely overshadowed by a far more popular model. In the CC’s case, the culprit was the Volkswagen Passat, arguably one of the most popular sedans in the U.S. today. It says a lot about the CC’s struggling state of affairs that the Passat actually out-sold it by a staggering 40:1 ratio. That means that for every one CC that Volskwagen sold, it sold 40 Passat models. If that doesn’t explain why the CC is headed to retirement, I don’t know what will.

As the only car on this list with Australian roots, I do believe that the Chevrolet SS never got the traction it needed to really gain a strong foothold in the US market. It only arrived in the US in 2014 after carving up a quite a career Down Under as the Holden Commodore SS. It may not have been the easiest car to look out, but the SS was every bit the performance maven that it was hyped up to be. The only problem was that the hype it generated faded about as fast as it rose and before the SS could even establish itself in American soil, sales of the model never caught on. Chevy ultimately decided to cut its losses on the model, even if it probably never even gave it a chance to grow in the first place.

The fate of the Buick Verano is an interesting case on how the popularity of the SUV market has affected other segments. The Verano is, for all intents and purposes, an entry-level luxury car. It’s a decent model too, unassuming in its looks, yet had a good comfort level to it that was spoke to what Buick was all about. The thing is, the market for compact sedans has been steadily dwindling as more consumers turn towards crossovers and SUVs. A lot of models have been affected by this, including the Verano, which somehow found itself getting usurped by a model in its own family – the Encore – that also happens to be one of the most sought-after crossovers in the U.S. today.

In some ways, the Jeep Patriot proved that even crossovers and SUVs aren’t immune to getting axed. The Infiniti QX70 falls along those same lines, even though the reputation for both models couldn’t have been more different. Unlike the Patriot, the QX70 was actually a popular model at one point its life. It was also a ground-breaking luxury crossover that was one of the first of its kind to highlight curvy styling in a car of its size. But like everything else that has been around for quite some time, sales of the QX70 dropped in recent years, forcing Infiniti to abandon the crossover and replace it with a redesigned QX50. It’s unclear if we’ll ever see the QX70 again, but with crossovers and SUVs still gaining in popularity, I wouldn’t close the door on this model from making a comeback. Just don’t expect it to happen anytime in the near future.

Without question the most popular Mitsubishi model in history, the Lancer has been a standard-bearer for the automaker’s compact car exploits in the US since 2002. But unlike the Toyota Corolla and the Honda Civic, the Lancer never quite reached the level of popularity that its two big rivals managed to achieve. It certainly didn’t help that the Lancer was in part stigmatized by a good part of the population as coming from a perceived-to-be inferior automaker. Clearly, Mitsubishi could’ve done more for the Lancer than sit on the popularity of the Evolution performance line. But it didn’t do enough and, while the Lancer did last for as long as it could, it quickly became another victim of the SUV uprising. For all of its faults, Mitsubishi is doing the right thing by focusing more on its crossovers and SUVs. I just wish that it didn’t do it at the expense of the Lancer.

In case you haven’t realized yet, I saved the most devastating departure for last. What else is there to say about the cultural impact of the Dodge Viper? It’s arguably the most famous American-made sports car in history. It’s also the model that changed Chrysler’s fortune when it made its debut in 1992. Long thought of to be a purveyor of dullness, the introduction of the Viper flipped the narrative around Chrysler. It certainly put the automaker in the American performance car map opposite Ford and Chevrolet. But as iconic as the Viper was, is, and will continue to be, it never really reached the heights of popularity that the Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro attained. It did have a loyal fanbase to fall back on, but over the years, that fanbase never grew to become something that Chrysler could listen to. It didn’t help that the Viper had its own tumultuous life,
changing corporate ownership on two separate occasions and even getting discontinued in 2010. It did come back with a vengeance in 2012, but it seemed that its “return” was nothing more than Chrysler’s attempt to squeeze out the last drop of cache the model had.

There have been a lot of cars that have been retired in recent years and all the same; there will be more of them that will be canned in the future. But there will only be one Dodge Viper.

So we started talking in the office about what sports cars we want to see revived, and we settled on a pair of classic sports cars and one car that is officially dead, but not out of showrooms yet. The Porsche 944,Honda S2000, and the Dodge Viper are all in our dream garage of dead cars we want to return. Keep reading to find out why!

So we started talking in the office about what sports cars we want to see revived, and we settled on a pair of classic sports cars and one car that is officially dead, but not out of showrooms yet. The Porsche 944,Honda S2000, and the Dodge Viper are all in our dream garage of dead cars we want to return. Keep reading to find out why!

News surrounding Hurricane Harvey has been constantly flowing since the Category Three storm poured trillions of gallons of rainwater onto the coast of Texas over several days. Metro Huston and its surrounding areas are among the hardest hit. Among the more than 66 people dead and an estimated 44,000 homes flooded, nearly a million vehicles were lost to flood waters.

Images tell the clearest story, with photos of submerged cars lining once-busy Interstates and the aftermath of muddy water soaking into every nook and void within a car’s interior. Of the photos we’ve seen, the saddest are of antique and performance cars, including a vintage Porsche 911, several Corvettes and Vipers, and even a few late-model Ferraris. Of course, a flooded vehicle is legally required to be listed as such on its title, warning would-be buyers about its time under water. While we’re happy to see vintage and high-dollar vehicles get restored and retitled appropriately, some flood cars will be shadily repaired and sold on the pre-owned market with no indication to the buyer. This is most commonly done with average vehicles like pickups,SUVs, and family cars. The most recent large-scale case of this happening was Hurricane Sandy that hit New York and New Jersey in 2012. Hurricane Harvey will undoubtedly see the same illegal activity in its wake.

Unfortunately, we expect to see similar photos from Florida in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma.

It may not have succeeded in reclaiming the Nürburgring production car lap record from the Lamborghini Huracán Performante, but finally, the Dodge Viper got the proper send-off it so richly deserves, all thanks to the passion and determination of the Viper Owners Association. Relentless in their pursuit of Nürburgring glory, members of the group continued to bang in laps around the Nürburgring in an effort to unseat the Huracán Performante’s record lap time of 6:52.01. It failed to even get close, but that shouldn’t take away from the accomplishment of squeezing in a lap time of 7:01.3 around the 12.9-mile lap.

Yep. Against all odds, drivers Dominik and Mario Farnbacher and all the people involved in the endeavor managed to improve on its previous fastest lap of 7:03.23, coming a second over actually breaking the seven-minute barrier. The achievement is made even more impressive by the fact that these Viper owners had little to no help from Dodge or FCA to bring the Viper ACR to the famed German track. The collective relied on a fund-raising effort and a few sponsors to even come this far in their quest and while they did fall short of their ultimate goal (the Huracan was still nine seconds faster around the track) they have nothing to be ashamed about.

They did what FCA and Dodge should’ve done in the first place. They gave the Viper a proper tribute and had they not crashed out, who knows if they could’ve really broken that all-too precious seven-minute barrier. It doesn’t matter now, nor should it because the Viper Owners Association represented the Viper about as well as they could. Well done, guys.

Production of the Dodge Viper has officially ended, so there really is little reason to hope for the American sports car to somehow find its way back into the land of the living. If there ever were people who have been properly commemorating the departure of the beloved Viper, nobody’s doing a better job at it than the good people of the Viper Owners Association. For those who don’t remember, members of the organization successfully embarked on a crowdfunding movement to send the Dodge Viper ACR to the Nurburgring to see if it could take down the lap record for a production car, a record currently held by the Lamborghini Huracan Performante.

It had an initial run back in July and, while it didn’t succeed in toppling the Huracan Performante’s 6:52.01 lap time, it did manage to post a still-impressive time of 7:03.45. Not content with its pace, the group went back to the ‘Ring with drivers Dominik and Mario Farnbacher in tow, determined to succeed where it failed the first time. Unfortunately, their best efforts “only” resulted in a fastest lap of 7:03.23, which was still more than 10 seconds off of the pace of the Huracan Performante. Disappointing as it was – the team blamed the hot weather as a factor in the car’s performance, as per Road & Track – there’s still reason to be optimistic as the team plans to make a third trip back to the ‘Ring to see if it can at least break the seven-minute barrier, or better yet, do what is becoming a seemingly insurmountable task and take down the Huracan Performante’s record.

Like most things in this world, I’m well aware that even the finest of them have expiration dates. We don’t know when or where their time will come, but it will happen. This is especially true in a business like the auto industry that evolves as fast as it does. Today’s great cars become tomorrow’s relics and the cycle goes on and on. Still, it doesn’t make saying goodbye any easier, which is exactly what we’re about to do to the Dodge Viper, considered as one of America’s most popular and iconic models.

The Viper has had an interesting run. It sprung to life back in 1992, slithering its way into the hearts and minds of sports car aficionados the world over. I was eight years old at that time, and while my recollection of the Viper’s debut is hazy to say the least, I do remember seeing it across a wide spectrum of mediums, be it in magazines, TV, and of course, toys. Back then, I wasn’t interested in how much power it had, what it could do on a race track, or how it lined up against its rivals. All I cared about was its name. The “Viper” name struck me because it was cool beyond the words. It came at that time when I was hooked to G.I. Joe and remember thinking to myself that if Cobra Commander had a car, it would be the Viper, name symmetry notwithstanding. It was just the perfect sports car for the perfect villain. It was mean, menacing, and most of all, it oozed bravado and attitude the likes of which I hadn’t seen from any American car at that time. Simply put, the Viper was the bad boy of the U.S. auto scene, a status that it has proudly worn for the better part of its existence.

Leave it to people power to get something done that an automaker of Dodge’s status wasn’t able to do. Most of you will probably remember a few months ago, a group of Dodge Viper enthusiasts started pooling their resources together to accomplish one goal: send the fifth-generation Dodge Viper to the Nürburgring to attempt a lap run. I didn’t think that it could happen, but I’m happy to have been proven wrong. The crowdfunding movement actually worked and a bone-stock Viper ACR found its way to the famed German race track. More importantly, it was able to set a lap time of 7:03.45, almost nine seconds quicker than the 7:12.13 lap time set by its predecessor back in 2011.

It’s true that the current-generation Viper ACR’s lap time is still a long ways away from the current production car lap record of 6:52.01 held by the Lamborghini Huracán Performante. But just because it’s still over 10 seconds away from the record, it doesn’t mean that the Viper ACR’s time at the ‘Ring was a complete waste. In fact, the lap time set by the American sports car placed it sixth-fastest of all time among production cars, faster than the Nismo-prepped Nissan GT-R, the Mercedes-AMG GT R, and the Chevrolet Corvette C7 Z06. More importantly, driver Dominik Farnbacher and the team behind the attempt will make a go at the track a few more times this week with the goal of besting the lap times of the Porsche 918 Spyder and the Lamborghini Aventador Superveloce. Looks like the Dodge Viper ACR’s quest for Nürburgring glory isn’t done just yet.

After 25 years of redefining the American sports car landscape, the Dodge Viper has about six weeks left to live before Fiat Chrysler Automobiles pulls the plug on the famed sports car. FCA made it official (again) by sending a notice to the state of Detroit, confirming its plans to close down the Conner Avenue Assembly Plant where the last of the Vipers are being built.

While this isn’t exactly breaking news – FCA confirmed the August 31 funeral for the Viper back in February – the automaker’s latest notice does provide a cold dose of reality to the inevitable that a lot of us hoped would never come to pass. The Dodge Viper is set to be killed off and there appears to be no turning back. The good news is that according to FCA spokesman Jodi Tinson, the Viper’s production facility has a future part of the company’s plans. The scope of those plans have yet to be announced, but it’s reassuring to know the factory will still have some life to it, even if the same can’t be said for the Viper. Oh, well. All good thing must come to an end, it seems. It’s had a good 25-year run, minus the two years it was shelved from 2010 to 2012. Weak sales may have contributed to the sports car’s demise, but its legacy will remain intact long after the final model is sent out of production. It’s been a good ride, Dodge Viper.

And so it is, the end of the Dodge Viper now has an official date. For years, rumors and speculation surrounding the Viper’s fate has been one of the most talked-about items in the auto industry and while we’ve known for quite a while now that Dodge was in fact sending the Viper to retirement, we didn’t receive an official date until Fiat Chrysler Automobiles design chief and former SRT CEO Ralph Gilles finally made the announcement at the Chicago Auto Show. The Dodge Viper, after a polarizing run in the industry spanning 25 years, will no longer be built on August 31, 2017.

Check your calendars, ladies and gentlemen. That’s a little over six months away until we officially say goodbye to the iconic sports car. For those who need a refresher, the Viper burst into American automotive consciousness in 1992 before becoming an unwitting victim of Chrysler’s bankruptcy that led to the car taking a temporary hiatus. It came back in 2013, but it was never the same as slow sales and evolving consumer preferences turned the Viper into an expendable model.

FCA ultimately decided in 2015 to retire the Viper this year and with Gilles’ comments in Chicago, the cast for the brash and brutish sports car’s tombstone is now being created.

It’s a sad end for the model many believed to be America’s last true sports car. For a time, the Viper was a force of sports car personality that epitomized the rawness and unbridled thrill of sports car driving. It was never the best-looking sports car, nor was it the fastest and most powerful. But it did have all three qualities in spades and unlike most of today’s refined and tech-driven performance car’s the Viper’s reputation for being difficult to tame spoke to the thrill of actually being able to drive the sports car up to its full potential.

It’s been a great run for the Dodge Viper and the car will undoubtedly be missed by the industry. But like everything else, every story has an opening and closing chapter, and the Viper’s closing chapter will come to a conclusion on August 31.

Those who missed out on buying the Viper before Dodge closed all ordering earlier this year now have a second chance to get the sports car before the model is discontinued. Company officials have confirmed that ordering for the last production of the Viper will reopen by the end of the year.

Dodge chief Tim Kuniskis told The Detroit News that the company was forced to close the order books for the Viper back in October 7, largely because it had to figure out how many more orders it could accommodate by the end of the model-year production in mid-2017. “We actually had to shut down the ordering because we outran our headlights,” Kuniskis said. “We didn’t know if we were going to have enough parts to build all the cars that people ordered.”

A shortage in parts, specifically the custom-built carbon fiber aero wings, also forced Dodge to close the order books for the Viper ACR back in September 27. Turns out, the shortage even forced a handful of Viper ACR models to sit stagnant in Detroit as the company waited for the parts to arrive. Now it appears that the issues have been sorted out and production for the sports car is expected to reopen anytime soon.

The company didn’t say how many models it can produce, but the expectation, at least in the mind of Kuniskis, is that both variants of the Viper will sell out in short order, particularly the track-capable Viper ACR, whose demand is, according to the Dodge boss, “off the charts.”

The Dodge Viper is headed to an ignominious ending but in fairness to Dodge, the American automaker is making sure that the Viper is going out with a bang. A slew of special edition models based on the Viper ACR have sold out in record time, proving that the Viper collector market is alive and healthy. Sadly, those special editions were of limited quantity so not everyone got the chance to own one. Fret not though because there’s another way to get a non-standard Viper ACR, one that involves taking the aftermarket route. It just so happens that Geiger Cars has just unveiled its new program for the Viper ACR that comes with a performance upgrade that spikes the 8.4-liter V-10’s engine to 765 horsepower and 679 pound-feet of torque.

The new numbers represent an increase of 120 ponies and 79 pound-feet of torque, enough to give the range-topping Viper some serious road and track capabilities. Imagine what a Geiger-tuned Viper ACR is capable of when the standard model has already set some serious lap times in a number of race tracks. I can only think of the possibilities but for owners of the Viper ACR, they can actually find out for themselves if they avail of Geiger Cars’ tuning program.

Speaking of the program, the engine upgrade isn’t the only thing included in the whole kit. The tuner is also offering what it calls an “Extreme Aero Package,” a set of carbon fiber body kits that were added to help keep Viper ACR owners from losing control of their sports cars. The whole kit can be a bit pricey, especially when you take into account possible shipping costs. But if the need matches up with the desires, then it shouldn’t be a problem adding more juice to the already potent Dodge Viper ACR.

The Dodge Viper has been making the headlines for all the wrong reasons recently. Not that it’s going to matter from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ perspective, but as the automaker prepares to once again send the Viper into the disabled list, it wouldn’t hurt for the model to get a little bit of shine, would it? How surprising is it then that the provider of good news is the Detroit Public Library’s National Automotive History Collection, which has named the Viper its most “Collectible Vehicle of the Future” for 2016.

For those not familiar with this award, the NAHC is basically predicting that models of the Viper launched in 2015 will fetch hefty sums in future auctions. The irony is overflowing on this one as the current state of the Viper doesn’t necessarily scream “future collector’s item.” On the contrary, the sports car’s paltry sales numbers are being blamed as the biggest reason why FCA is discontinuing the model for the time being. And yet, the NAHC thinks that the 2015 Viper has the potential to command frenzied bidding wars in future auctions?

Granted, the NAHC is a legitimate organization that touts itself as having “more than 600,000 documents” related to the auto industry, making it “the world’s most extensive public archive of automotive information.” The group didn’t earn that distinction by throwing out ridiculous statements and the NAHC Board of Trustees pays careful attention on the pulse of the industry to determine which model it thinks has a chance to be a future collectible.

But the Viper? It sounds silly to think about a model languishing in the sales charts being hailed as a future collectible. Even more perplexing, given the model’s tumultuous history since the turn of the century, is that the NAHC has bestowed the Viper the award three times before: 2003, 2007, and 2013. Maybe it deserved those awards at some point in its history, but there’s little indication about the 2015 Viper that points to it becoming a future must-have in any car collection.

Maybe the NAHC will be proven right 50 or so years from now. But today? It’s admittedly kind of hard to wrap our heads around the organization’s decision.

The problems that FiatChrysler Automobiles has had with Dodge Viper is well-documented. As it turns out, the Viper was such a problem that FCA almost sold it to a group of deep-pocketed enthusiasts a few years ago. Word of this a rather shocking revelation that comes from The Truth About Cars, which managed to talk to none other than noted car collector James Glickenhaus, who himself had first-hand knowledge of the proposed deal.

According to TTAC, Glickenhaus served as an adviser to the group of investors who eventually backed out of the deal after doing their due diligence on the Viper’s business. Glickenahus himself advised on not doing the deal, arguing that anybody who ends up buying the business would have to sell “three times the number of Vipers” that Chrysler has been selling annually “just to break even.”

Considering how much trouble FCA already has had in convincing people to buy the Viper, the targets were simply too difficult to attain. That’s not to say that the group was in over its head from the very beginning because, apparently, they had the financial means to pull it off. It would just be too much of a headache to partake in and, ultimately, would not be worth all the trouble.

A spokesperson for FCA told TTAC that it wasn’t shopping the Viper “at this point in time” but refused to comment on whether the discussions with this group even took place. Glickenhaus did say that the automaker was receptive to the idea of selling the Viper, even adding that the deal, had it gone through, would have also included the production facility where it’s being built.

Whether the negotiations happened or not, none of it will change the current fate of the Viper, which is headed to retirement very soon now that FCA has thrown the white flag on the model.

Hennessey is one of those tuners that don’t need any introduction. But I’m going to give one anyway, especially since the company is responsible for the mind-blowing Venom GT, considered as arguable the fastest production car in the world. The American tuner doesn’t have anything remotely similar to the Venom GT here, but it does have a new tuning program for the Dodge Viper that borrows the Venom name. It’s officially called the Venom 800 and it packs 808 horsepower and 790 pound-feet of torque.

Those numbers may look eye-popping, but anybody who knows anything about Hennessey is aware that these are the kind of numbers the tuner is capable of producing. Heck, that Venom 800 program, as impressive as it looks, isn’t even the most powerful engine upgrade Hennessey has on offer for the Viper. It also has a bigger modification that squeezes out in excess of 1,000 horsepower out of the Viper’s 6.2-liter V-8 engine.

This is the kind of work that Hennessey is capable of. It’s not going to do wonders in the way of cosmetic and aerodynamic upgrades, but when it comes to working on those V-8 engines, there aren’t that many American tuners that can come close to achieving what the Texas-based outfit is routinely capable of doing.

The third-generation Dodge Viper was unveiled in 2012, three years after Chrysler decided to discontinue the nameplate due to serious financial problems. The new sports car arrived with a slightly more aggressive exterior design, a revised cockpit, and a more powerful 8.4-liter V-10 engine connected to an updated transmission. Unlike its predecessor, the third-gen Viper was sold as a two-door coupe only. After five years during which it spawned many special-edition models, set lap records, and won races, the Viper will be phased out completely in 2017 due to slow sales and Chrysler’s shift to producing more profitable vehicles.

2017 also marks the Viper’s 25th year on the market, and Dodge is celebrating with no fewer than five special-edition models. One of them is the GTS-R Commemorative Edition ACR, which also celebrates an important moment from the Viper’s past. Specifically, this model pays tribute to the 1998 GTS-R GTS Championship Edition, which was built to celebrate the Viper’s victory in the 1997 FIA GT2 championship.

“The Dodge Viper has had a great run, and 25 years after it was first introduced, it leaves the supercar world reaching for the records it continues to set,” said Tim Kuniskis, Head of Passenger Cars at FCA North America. “With more track records than any production car in the world, the Dodge Viper ACR will live on as the fastest street-legal Viper track car ever, the car that has set the benchmark for all that follows in its tracks.”

Continue reading to learn more about the Dodge Viper GTS-R Commemorative Edition ACR.

German tuner of American muscle cars, Karl Geiger, decided to start 2016 with a rather special car, something like of which cannot be find anywhere else in Europe except at his Munich showroom. Meet the GeigerCars 2016 Dodge Viper ACR (American Club Racer).

Geiger’s Dodge Viper ACR is in standard factory form with a 645 horsepower and 600 lb.-ft. of torque 8.4 liter V10 engine, and racing aero kit, suspension, and brakes. But the tuner argues, citing facts and figures from the official testings, that the ACR is quicker around Laguna Seca than a Porsche 918 and that it holds the record for thirteen race tracks in America. So they are confident it will be able to get out of its own way at the Nurburgring.

How do you improve a car that has already set lap records at 13 road tracks in the US, including Laguna Seca, Road Atlanta, and Willow Springs? The short answer is you don’t. GeigerCars could have taken its usual course of modifying the Dodge Viper ACR to turn it into the black mamba of the race track. Or, it could just try to replicate the viciousness of the Viper ACR by developing its own aerodynamic package that can replicate the sports car’s record-breaking capabilities.

The German tuner opted for the latter and so here we are. This is GeigerCars’ take on the Viper ACR and it comes with what the company calls an “Extreme Aero Package” to help improve the car’s performance capabilities and turn it into a razor-sharp street legal track car across the Atlantic.

The aerodynamic modifications on this Viper are extensive and were developed with the singular purpose of improving its handling on the track. There was very little work done on the engine – surprising, right? – but according to Geiger, any improvement on the power of the Viper’s 8.4-liter V-10 engine would’ve made the car a handful to drive in any condition.

In the end, GeigerCars reconfigured the Viper the way it intended it to. It still won’t be the fastest car on the autobahn, but with all the modifications tied into improving the car’s overall handling, I can’t imagine how awesome this car can go on a race track, especially in those tight corners.

Here’s your chance to own one of the most macho cars ever to hit the roads in the United Kingdom! It’s a 2005 Dodge Viper Street Serpent, a rare wide body SRT-10 model in pristine condition, offered for sale at luxury dealership SuperVettura Sunningdale.

On the looks alone Dodge Viper Street Serpent is worth the sticker price of £79,950. But the beauty of this car is more than skin deep. For starters, it’s a wide body Viper which is afantastically rare beast in its own right. It is also professionally modified and boasts a number of very valuable extras. What’s more, the left-hand-drive Viper was imported into the UK by its owner from America with only 11,000 original miles on it. Apparently the car has not yet seen a drop of rain. But it does come with a hardtop in case you fancied showing it some.

This Dodge Viper Street Serpent is one of only 9 examples built to commemorate the Motorsport Competition Coupe. It comes in Graphite Grey with a matching hardtop and features the following extras:

German tuner of American cars Geiger gas come with a sweet upgrade package for the Viper GTS. Packing 710 horsepower, uprated chassis and improved aerodynamics, GeigerCars Dodge Viper takes American tuner sot school on how to improve a primitive muscle car like this.

Starting with the massive 8.4 liter, 640 horsepower and 600 lb.-ft. of torque V10 engine, Geiger installs a new ECU software, a custom exhaust system with sport cats, high-performance air boxes and improved manifolds. The result is 710 horsepower and 861 Nm of torque, and the result of that is 0 to 100 km/h in 2.9 seconds and a top speed of 341 km/h. Those are the same performance figures as the Ferrari F12tdf!

GeigerCars Dodge Viper GTS also benefits from enhanced ride and handling thanks to KW Variant 2 Coilovers with adjustable rebound damping, negotiating corners by manipulating a set of wide wheels shod with 295/30ZR18 front tires and 355/30ZR19 rear tires. The car even gets a carbon fiber aero kit, but it is fairly subtle and you may not even notice the presence of a new front spoiler lip and a rear diffuser.

If you are intrigued by GeigerCars Dodge Viper GTS tuning package and want something like it, we should mention the performance upgrade alone costs 11.900 Euro, and you have to shell out an extra 4.700 Euro for the suspension, and a whopping 5.866 Euro for the body kit.